View source for Bray Productions

{{Short description|American animation studio}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2021}}
{{redirect|Bray Studios|the UK studios|Bray Film Studios}}
{{Infobox company
| name = Bray Productions
| logo = 
| type = [[Animation]]
| predecessor = [[Émile Cohl|Emile Cohl Pictures]]
| successor = [[Walter Lantz Productions]]<br />Bolivar Productions<br />[[Fleischer Studios|Out of the Inkwell Studios]]
| founder = [[John Randolph Bray]]
| key_people = John Randolph Bray<br />Earl Hurd<br />[[Paul Terry (cartoonist)|Paul Terry]]<br />[[Max Fleischer]]<br />[[Dave Fleischer]]<br />[[Walter Lantz]]
| industry = [[Film|Motion pictures]]
| products = 
| fate = Bankruptcy
| owner = John Randolph Bray
| divisions = 
| caption = 
| image = "The Quacky Doodles" 1917 ad by Paramount-Bray Pictographs in Motion Picture News (Jul-Aug 1917) (IA motionpicturenew161unse) (page 165 crop).jpg
| foundation = {{start date and age|1912}}
| defunct = {{start date and age|1928}}
| location_city = [[New York City]], [[New York (state)|New York]]
| location_country = [[United States]]
| homepage = 
}}
{{Lead too short|date=October 2021}}
'''Bray Productions''' was a pioneering American [[animation studio]] that produced several popular cartoons during the years of [[World War I]] and the early [[interwar era]],<ref>Donald Crafton; ''Before Mickey: The Animated Film, 1898–1928''; University of Chicago Press; {{ISBN|0-226-11667-0}} (2nd edition, paperback, 1993)</ref><ref>Denis Gifford; ''American Animated Films: The Silent Era, 1897–1929''; McFarland & Company; {{ISBN|0-89950-460-4}} (library binding, 1990)</ref><ref>Leonard Maltin; ''Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons''; Penguin Books; {{ISBN|0-452-25993-2}} (1980, 1987)</ref> becoming a springboard for several key animators of the 20th century, including the Fleischer brothers, Walter Lantz, Paul Terry, [[Shamus Culhane]] and [[Grim Natwick]] among others.

== History ==
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The studio was founded sometime before 1912 by [[John Randolph Bray]]. It was perhaps one of the first studios entirely devoted to [[animated series|serial animation]] at the time instead of one-off experiments.{{Citation needed|date=January 2020}} Its first series was Bray's ''[[Colonel Heeza Liar]]'', but from the beginning, the studio brought in outsiders to direct promising new series. [[Carl Anderson (cartoonist)|Carl Anderson]], later known for the [[comic strip]] ''[[Henry (comics)|Henry]]'', directed ''The Police Dog'' from the beginning of the company.

The year 1915 brought [[Earl Hurd]] and [[Paul Terry (cartoonist)|Paul Terry]]; the former became J. R. Bray's business partner and directed ''[[Bobby Bumps]]'', the latter was employed under duress and directed ''Farmer Al Falfa''. The brothers [[Max Fleischer|Max]] and [[Dave Fleischer]] joined in 1916. In 1918, the rival [[International Film Service]] studio folded and owner [[William Randolph Hearst]] licensed Bray to continue the IFS series, which included ''[[Jerry on the Job]]'' films adapted from [[Walter Hoban]]'s comic strip. Many staff members of the former studio transferred to Bray, and most of the new [[cartoon]]s were directed by the same man who directed them for IFS, [[Gregory La Cava]].{{Citation needed|date=January 2020}}

Bray's goal was to have four units working on four cartoons at any one time; since it took a month to complete a film, four units with staggered schedules produced one cartoon a week for use of the "screen magazines" (a one-reel collection of live-action didactic pieces and travelogs in addition to the cartoon, that was played before the feature). Bray started with [[Pathé]] as his distributor, switched to [[Paramount Pictures|Paramount]] in 1916, and then switched to [[Goldwyn Pictures]] in 1919.

Of the units, one produced his ''Colonel Heeza Liar'', one produced Hurd's ''Bobby Bumps'', and one produced non-series cartoons, usually topical commentaries on the news directed by Leighton Budd, J. D. Leventhal, and others. The fourth unit was the one that kept changing hands. It produced Terry's ''Farmer Al Falfa'' in 1916, until Terry left a year later, and the Farmer went with him. It then produced Max Fleischer's ''[[Out of the Inkwell]]'' until 1921, when Fleischer left, taking Koko the Clown with him. The influx of IFS series at the same time broke up the four-unit system — in 1920 there were ten series going simultaneously, with ''Heeza Liar'' in hiatus from 1917.

Bray was constantly looking to expand his studio. He financed the semi-independent studio of [[C. Allen Gilbert]] to create a series of serious ''Silhouette Fantasies'' on classical themes (he actually did some of the animation work for this series). In 1917 he bought out his distributor's screen magazine to produce one of his own, moving him into the realm of live-action shorts producer. During World War I, he assigned Leventhal and Max Fleischer's units to create training and educational cartoons for the [[U.S. Army]]. These did so well that after the war, Bray was swamped with orders from the government and big business to make films for them.{{Citation needed|date=January 2020}}

Over a period of years, Bray moved the focus of his company from entertainment to education, putting Leventhal and E. Dean Parmelee in charge of the technical department. Dr. Rowland Rogers became educational director, while [[Jam Handy|Jamison "Jam" Handy]] was put in charge of a [[Chicago]]–[[Detroit]] branch for creating films for the auto industry, Bray's largest private client.
[[File:Monkeys Prefer Blondes poster.jpg|thumb|Poster for a 1926 Bray Studios film short, ''Monkeys Prefer Blondes'']]
The 1919 move from Paramount to Goldwyn also included a re-incorporation of the studio, now called Bray Pictures Corporation. The studio was putting out more than three reels of screen magazines per week, as well as educational and training films. Bray Pictures also made the first cartoon made in color, ''[[The Debut of Thomas Cat]]'', shot in [[Brewster Color]] and released on February 8, 1920 (although some claim the first animated short was the British ''In Gollywog Land'', a [[stop motion]]/live-action hybrid shot in [[Kinemacolor]] and made in 1912<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bcdb.com/cartoon_information/58594-In_Gollywog_Land.html|title=Additional Information about the Theatrical Cartoon In Gollywog Land|access-date=January 24, 2024|archive-date=January 17, 2013|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130117220302/http://www.bcdb.com/cartoon_information/58594-In_Gollywog_Land.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> or the animation/live-action hybrid ''Pinto's Prizma Comedy Revue'' made by [[Pinto Colvig]] in 1919 and shot in the [[Prizma]] process) and was apparently involved in an unnamed [[sound-on-film]] cartoon by [[Walt Lantz]] (co-producer/director) and [[Hugo Riesenfeld]] (composer) in 1927 for [[Movietone News|Movietone]], in between the releases of ''[[Don Juan (1926 film)|Don Juan]]'' and ''[[The Jazz Singer]]'' and coincidentally shortly before Bray Pictures' demise.

The expenses quickly outweighed the revenue, and in January 1920, [[Samuel Goldwyn]] bought a controlling interest in Bray Pictures and ordered a massive reorganization. Max Fleischer and J. D. Leventhal became supervising directors of the entertainment and technical branches of the studio respectively, and the company was streamlined to work more like [[Goldwyn Picture Corporation]], with two cartoons released a week, which meant a much bigger workload than most were willing to take.

The result was a massive exodus of talent, including Max Fleischer and even Earl Hurd, which also led to an increasingly poor output which led Goldwyn to drop Bray Pictures. In the wake of this setback, [[Vernon Stallings]] took over as Bray's entertainment production supervisor, being replaced by Walter Lantz by 1924. Stallings directed ''[[Krazy Kat]]'' and the revival of ''Heeza Liar'', while Lantz directed ''[[Dinky Doodle]]''. Among the big names who passed through the studio were [[Wallace Carlson]], [[Milt Gross]], [[Frank Moser (artist)|Frank Moser]], [[Burt Gillett]], [[Grim Natwick]], [[Raoul Barré]], [[Pat Sullivan (film producer)|Pat Sullivan]], [[Jack King (animator)|Jack King]], [[David Hand (animator)|David Hand]], [[Clyde Geronimi]] and [[Shamus Culhane]].

J.R. Bray paid little attention to the animation side of things during the 1920s, focusing instead on beating [[Hal Roach]] as the king of two-reel comedy, with the disastrous series "The McDougall Alley Kids". When this adventure failed, he slipped out of the business. Meanwhile, Walter Lantz practically became a full-fledged producer as head of the cartoon division, with some trade publications referring to the studio as "Lantz-Bray" by the time the entertainment branch of Bray Pictures Corporation closed in 1928. The educational/commercial branch, Brayco, made mostly filmstrips from the 1920s until it closed in 1963. The Jam Handy Organization began life as a subsidiary of Bray Studios to fulfill its business contracts, making several thousand industrial and sponsored films and tens of thousands of filmstrips, mostly for the [[automobile]] industry, as an independent entity from 1928 until 1983. Max Fleischer, after being ousted from his own studio in the early 1940s, worked for Handy and later on Brayco in the 1940s and 1950s.

== Series produced by Bray Productions ==
* ''[[Colonel Heeza Liar]]'' (1913–1917, 1922–1924): directed by J. R. Bray 1913–1917; Vernon Stallings 1922–1924<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/24/mode/2up |pages=24–25}}</ref>
* ''[[The Police Dog]]'' (1914–1916, 1918): directed by C. T. Anderson<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/42/mode/2up |pages=42–43}}</ref>
* ''The Trick Kids'' (1916): directed by Alexander Leggett<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/46/mode/2up |pages=46–47}}</ref>
* ''Plastiques'' (1916): directed by Ashley Miller
* ''[[Bobby Bumps]]'' (1916–1922): directed by Earl Hurd<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/22/mode/2up |pages=22–23}}</ref>
* ''[[Farmer Al Falfa]]'' (1916–1917): directed by Paul Terry<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/26/mode/2up |pages=26–27}}</ref>
* ''Silhouette Fantasies'' (1916): directed by C. Allen Gilbert<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/44/mode/2up |page=44}}</ref>
* ''Miss Nanny Goat'' (1916–1917): directed by Clarence Rigby<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/36/mode/2up |page=37}}</ref>
* ''Quacky Doodles'' (1917): directed by F.M. Follett<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/42/mode/2up |page=43}}</ref>
* ''Picto Puzzles'' (1917): Sam Lloyd
* ''Otto Luck'' (1917): directed by Wallace A. Carlson<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/40/mode/2up |page=40}}</ref>
* ''[[Goodrich Dirt]]'' (1917–1919): directed by Wallace A. Carlson<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/28/mode/2up |page=29}}</ref>
* ''[[Out of the Inkwell]]'' (1918–1921): directed by Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer
* ''Hardrock Dome'' (1919): directed by Pat Sullivan<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/30/mode/2up |page=30}}</ref>
* ''[[Us Fellers]]'' (1919–1920): directed by Wallace A. Carlson<ref name="auto">{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/46/mode/2up |page=47}}</ref>
* ''[[Jerry on the Job]]'' (1919–1922): directed by Gregory La Cava, Vernon Stallings, (Inherited from International Film Service)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/32/mode/2up |page=32}}</ref>
* ''Lampoons'' (1920): directed by Burt Gillett<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/34/mode/2up |page=35}}</ref>
* ''Ginger Snaps'' (1920): directed by Milt Gross
* ''[[The Katzenjammer Kids#The Katzenjammer Kids – in film and media|Shenanigan Kids]]'' (1920): directed by Gregory La Cava, Burt Gillett, and Grim Natwick (Inherited from International Film Service)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/32/mode/2up |pages=33–34}}</ref>
* ''[[Krazy Kat]]'' (1920–1921): directed by Vernon Stallings (Inherited from International Film Service)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/34/mode/2up |pages=34–35}}</ref>
* ''[[Happy Hooligan]]'' (1920–1921): directed by Gregory La Cava, Bill Nolan (Inherited from International Film Service)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/28/mode/2up |pages=29–30}}</ref>
* ''[[Judge Rummy]]'' (1920–21): directed by Gregory La Cava, Burt Gillett, Grim Natwick and Jack King (Inherited from International Film Service)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/32/mode/2up |pages=32–33}}</ref>
* ''Technical Romances'' (1922–1923): directed by J.A. Norling, Ashley Miller, and F. Lyle Goldman<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/44/mode/2up |page=45}}</ref>
* ''Ink Ravings'' (1922–1923): directed by Milt Gross<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/30/mode/2up |page=31}}</ref>
* ''[[Bray Magazine]]'' (1922–1923): directed by Milt Gross
* ''[[Dinky Doodle]]'' (1924–1926): directed by Walter Lantz<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/24/mode/2up |pages=25–26}}</ref>
* ''Un-Natural History'' (1925–1927): directed by Walter Lantz and Clyde Geronimi
* ''Hot Dog Cartoons'' (1926–1927): directed by Walter Lantz and Clyde Geronimi
* ''A McDougall Alley Comedy'' (1926–1928): directed by Joe Rock, Stan DeLay and Robert Wilcox

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://brayanimation.weebly.com/max-fleischer-series.html The Max Fleischer Series]
* [http://brayanimation.weebly.com/ Bray Animation Project]

{{Fleischer Studios}}
{{Famous Studios}}

[[Category:Bray Productions| ]]
[[Category:1914 establishments in New York (state)]]
[[Category:1928 disestablishments in New York (state)]]
[[Category:Mass media companies established in 1914]]
[[Category:Mass media companies disestablished in 1928]]
[[Category:American animation studios]]
[[Category:American companies established in 1914]]
[[Category:Paramount Pictures]]
[[Category:History of animation in the United States]]
[[Category:American companies disestablished in 1928]]
[[Category:Defunct companies based in New York (state)]]